By Dominic Casciani BBC News Online commuity affairs reporter

The government has released the latest statistics on asylum seekers in the UK - BBC News Online explains what it all means.

What do the new asylum statistics tell us?

The headline is that asylum applications have fallen to less than half what they were last year - in other words the Government has met the prime minister's pledge to halve applications.

This will come as a major relief to ministers who have made cutting the rate of applications the keystone of asylum policy.

The figures show there was 4,225 applications in September 2003 - a 52% drop on October last year.

The figure for the third quarter as a whole is 11,955, rising to 14,765 if dependents are counted separately.

Who's making these applications?

The largest number of applications came from nations with well recorded recent histories of conflict, persecution or human rights abuses.

MOST APPLICANTS BY NATIONALITY, Q3 2003 Somalia China Iran Zimbabwe Iraq India Turkey Pakistan Afghanistan DR Congo Source: Home Office

Applications from Zimbabwe have dropped dramatically despite the continued instability in the country.

This fall is probably linked to the government's tighter visa regime against people from this country, introduced this time last year.

Afghanistan is one of the big names no longer appearing in the top 10.

Migration experts say this shows how flows of people are closely linked to events; As situations improve in home countries, flows dry up.

So how cases are considered genuine?

It's very difficult to tell because of how the figures are compiled.

The government says 88% of initial decisions are refusals. Some 5% are given refugee status, a further 7% humanitarian protection, a new form of acceptance.

That's not the whole story.

About 20% of rejected asylum seekers are being found to be genuine, by one measure or another, on appeal - 4,270 in the last quarter.

Furthermore, the rejected column includes the 15% of applicants turned down on "non compliance grounds". This means they either missed a deadline or failed to properly return paperwork.

These cases - 2,130 in the last quarter - are not assessed so it's impossible to say whether they have well founded claims or not.

So it's probably fairer to say that just over half are rejected, excluding the appeals process and other factors.

Is the appeal system open to abuse?

The government says it wants to reform this element in the new bill to ensure that people don't.

It says the new system will have one tier of appeal, rather than a right to a second level of judicial oversight.

But over the past year we have seen a rise in successful appeals which, say asylum groups, shows the quality of decision-making has declined as efficiency reforms have kicked in.

For some nationalities from Africa (such as Somalis and Sudanese), up to four out of 10 rejected cases are being accepted as genuine on appeal.

What about removing those who have failed?

This is a key test of how well the government is doing.

Removals of failed applicants, typically by putting them on a plane, have risen considerably over the past two years and are now running at more than 3,000 a month, excluding dependents.

The most likely nationalities to be removed are from southern and eastern Europe.

Two of the top 10 - Poles and Czechs - will have full rights to come back to the UK to work once their countries join the European Union next year.

The number of dependents being removed has shot up to over a third of the total.

This suggests that immigration authorities may be finding it easier to deport families than other failed applicants, such as single men.

What else do we know about the system?

One of the most controversial elements at the moment is how the government is supporting those who have made applications.

Under a rule introduced last year, asylum seekers who don't apply straight away can be denied benefits.

The latest figures show that 2,810 people have been denied benefits or housing under this rule in the last quarter.

What is happened to these people remains unclear as many are reportedly sleeping on floors or in mosques and churches.

But so far there are more than 800 legal challenges to this rule stacked up in the High Court.